What you have there is a true bitza. You have a 68-70 rear subframe and sidecover/toolbox. The two pins use rubber grommets to cushion the sidecover. This was done because the earlier rigid mounting caused the sidecover to crack from vibration. The upper left bolt you have was originally a thumbscrew for toolbox access. The battery box support brackets are also later because they have rubber grommets instead of bolts that the correct sidecover used for upper mount points.

You wrote "one of the coolest thing I ever bought". Doesn't that says it already? Isn't that alone enough to find a place on your tribute?
As a tribute it cannot be condemned for being personal. Couldn't be any more personal than adding something that tops cool of cool. Right?

What you have there is a true bitza. You have a 68-70 rear subframe and sidecover/toolbox. The two pins use rubber grommets to cushion the sidecover. This was done because the earlier rigid mounting caused the sidecover to crack from vibration. The upper left bolt you have was originally a thumbscrew for toolbox access. The battery box support brackets are also later because they have rubber grommets instead of bolts that the correct sidecover used for upper mount points.

Thanks for the verification on that Pete.

Do you know if a 1964 seat will bolt to that later subframe, if I use the later hinges?

You wrote "one of the coolest thing I ever bought". Doesn't that says it already? Isn't that alone enough to find a place on your tribute?
As a tribute it cannot be condemned for being personal. Couldn't be any more personal than adding something that tops cool of cool. Right?

Enjoying your write up. You're doing good.

You're right Rango. Besides, I already mounted the light switch in it, it would be a lot of trouble to change that, right?

That side cover looked good on the shelf, but it's gonna look even better on a bike. Somebody spent a lot of time making that thing for his motorcycle. People used to do that for their cars and bikes. You had to have skills to be a Hot Rodder or to customize your bike. Now you can just order stuff on the internet and bolt it on. One of my mentors when I was in High School back in the 70's was the shop teacher. One of his hobbies was sand casting aluminum and I helped him with some of his projects. It takes a lot of time and care, and in the end it doesn't always work out and sometimes you have to do it over.

I had some time to fiddle with that side cover today. It turns out that, with my combination of parts, the lower mounting hole on that cast aluminum cover does not exactly line up with the bolt on the engine. That's a good thing, because it gave me room to install a bracket with a rubber mount. So I found some 1/8" aluminum and started carving out a bracket:

I poured out my stash of grommets and spacers:

And found something that looked like it would work:

The bracket:

Installed:

The side cover has two mounting holes on the top that line up with the two battery box support brackets, but only one of the support brackets had a fastener attached to it, so another one need to be added:

I took the bracket loose from the battery box and took it out to the garage where the welder was. Luckily it was warm out today, because I was still in my pajamas:

I figured three gobs of weld ought to hold it:

I rattle canned it and put it back on the battery box:

I only had to whack it with the hammer twice and it all lined up:

I slipped some rubber tubing over those top fasteners before installing the side cover. Those bolts on the bottom are just for the mock-up, I will order proper British Standard ones for final assembly. I'm pleased with the results of todays work:

About that time, the FedEx man brought these:

I also took some time to fiddle with the shocks a bit. Mine are the fully covered ones, with a top and bottom cover over the spring.

My thought was to take the black top cover off, take the chromed bottom cover and flip it over and put it on top, get some chromed springs, and my shocks would look just like Steve McQueens:

When I got mine apart, I found that my chromed covers were worn and scuffed from rubbing on the inside of the other cover. They would probably rust pretty quickly:

So I'm debating whether I should go with the scuffed ones, or pop for new Hagons.

After all the work to fit that fantastic side cover I would not be going with Hagons if you plan of actually using it in any way like its intended.I would be looking at a set of Icons,what used to be known as Konis and disguising them with those shrouds off the original shocks.Really enjoying your work

After all the work to fit that fantastic side cover I would not be going with Hagons if you plan of actually using it in any way like its intended.I would be looking at a set of Icons,what used to be known as Konis and disguising them with those shrouds off the original shocks.Really enjoying your work

Thanks for the tip on the Icons, Vince. Do you know a good source for them?

I didn't get any work done on Bitsy today, but I spent some time organizing the basement shop. I set up this old Yamaha stereo so I could have tunes while I work. I rigged my phone to the aux input and played the JJ Cale station on Pandora all afternoon.